Demonetisation: How Modi government’s cashless push is creating a whole new range of jobs

Demonetisation: How Modi government’s cashless push is creating a whole new range of jobs

A whole new range of digital jobs are being created as India moves towards a cashless economy, with a big push from the government’s demonetisation drive. From cybersecurity experts to digital CXOs, a gamut of opportunities are set to open up for white-collar professionals over the next one year.

1. DIGITAL SECURITY ARCHITECT

Growing digitisation and use of data for decision-making increase risk of hacking and fraud manifold. The drive towards a cashless economy is spurring demand for digital security architects, who will look into various aspects of cyber and digital security.

“As digitisation goes up, security aspect will be crucial. There will be a huge demand for people who can make transactions and digital channels (mobile banking, Internet banking, wallet, etc.) secure,” said Rishi Aurora, managing director, financial services at Accenture.

Even big companies such as Sony and Yahoo have faced cyberattacks. This underscores the need for devising more robust cybersecurity systems.

“With digitisation, we will see a lot of data breaches in the future as well because semi-literate people are getting into the digitised payment system,” said Jappreet Sethi, co-founder of YoStartups.

Startups will need digital security officers just like their established counterparts. “No startups in India are firm on this and Indian data is like fodder. One breach can cost an entire company to shut down since wallets aren’t tight enough, security wise,” said Sethi.

Role: Understanding the complexities of business and the risks involved, and suggesting and implementing solutions to make the systems more secure. It is a combination of forensics and cybersecurity functions.

Skills Needed: Knowledge of security solutions and strong business knowledge to understand the complexity of transactions. People who bring in design-thinking skills and who can build apps and websites. Proficiency in high-level languages and experience in ethical hacking – companies could do legal hacking marathons to identify younger people who are experts in this. Such staffers may not even have to come to office in some cases unless they are in a senior role. Many of these skills are predominantly seen in Israel, Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine.

2. ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING UNIT’S PRINCIPAL OFFICER

The government’s demonetisation drive has led to new risks, with a few unscrupulous elements attempting to misuse the banking system. Their modus operandi is to exploit existing banking products or services to undertake dubious transactions. This has a potentially debilitating impact on customer and investor confidence, reputational risk and regulatory impact that together add up to impact the reliability of a bank.In this scenario the roles of the bank’s anti-money laundering unit’s principal officer and the fraud containment unit become crucial.

“We will be able to detect abnormal transactions or patterns made more difficult due to large volumes of such transactions in the current scenario. We will also be able to detect irregularities or fraudulent actions and documentation frauds which may be embedded in seemingly bona fide transactions,” said Deodutta Kurane, group president-human capital management at YES Bank.

Role: Customer facing for early or real-time detection of such incidents; inward facing to detect if bank staff is working in collaboration with fraudsters. Skills Needed: Thorough understanding of post-demonetisation banking process. Regulatory and compliance knowledge.

One of the biggest challenges pertaining to demonetisation and digitisation is bridging the literacy gap. This will require a combination of biometrics, regional language programming and graphical UI design.

Companies such as Apple that have managed to successfully pull these hardware, software and design elements together have managed to derive sustainable competitive advantage. “These skills aren’t readily available in the labour market in India and employers will need to find people with core technical aptitude and train them up to specification,” said Rakshit Desai, managing director of FCM Travel Solutions.

Role: To design, develop and implement different regional languages programmes. Candidates have to be knowledgeable about the latest technology trends and be able to work in team settings.

Skills Needed: People with knowledge of robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning will become quite valuable in this evolution.

4. DIGITAL CHAMPIONS

These are people who can translate business requirements into digital language and when digital geeks come up with solutions they can connect that to the core business strategy. “There will be a huge demand for such people who can connect what technology provides with business solutions to create new opportunities for business,” said Raghu Gullapalli, managing director, products at Accenture.

In consumer facing businesses such as automobiles, fast-moving consumer goods, airports, real estate, etc., there are three main challenges thrown up by digitisation — externally serving customers, internally leveraging digitisation across organisation to unlock efficiency and looking at digital technology to transform and disrupt digital models. Digital champions will play a crucial role in acting as a bridge between various solutions and business processes.

Role: To work closely with the strategy team and digital leaders, and help them translate the new and changing business requirements while working closely with the geeks — analysts and people with knowledge of Internet of Things (IOT) — and synchronising their solutions with the business

Skills Needed: Strong business and domain knowledge, along with an MBA degree.

5. DIGITAL CXOS

Digital CXOs are people who understand the digital trend and think strategically about digitisation to unlock value. This category includes key decision-making people such as the chief technology officer, chief digital architect, etc.

“This is a new role that is evolving and coming into the limelight more with the transition to a digital said Prince Augustin, executive vice president-group human capital and leadership development at Mahindra & Mahindra.

Sinosh Panicker, partner at Hunt Partners, said: “CMO (chief marketing officer) roles will be extremely critical, with the key focus of not only acquiring customers at a fast pace but also responsible for increasing the usage of consumers in terms of frequency as well as ticket size.”

Deep experience in analytics-based marketing will be the key differentiator, he said. Role: To look at customer facing, product facing functions and unlock the value chain. To ensure customer connect is made as efficient as possible. Product digitisation for creating customer experience. Framing the digital architecture to provide satisfying customer experience.

Skills Needed: Senior business professionals with knowledge and understanding of the core business and customers.